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[Arbinire]

Out of curiosity's sake, what is the setting about?

http://www.slideshare.net/guest579df5/fallout-bible-complete

[miauw62]

you might as well have linked the gog page for FO:1, it'd have been equally helpful.

[umiman]

I wouldn't get your hopes up too much for Fallout 4's story.  They've got the same writer they had for Fallout 3, and dude's already proven he's had a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the setting is actually about.

Or the BoS could be a gang of elitist bandits like in FO1, FO2, and FNV.

Fixed that for ya.

Out of curiosity's sake, what is the setting about?

Edit: I wrote some stuff here but I found someone who articulates about this far better than me:

The Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3, Part 1

The original Fallout game was a gritty world where you explore the vast California desert in search of a water purification chip. It drew influences from Mad Max, campy 50’s sci-fi movies, and pulpy comics of the same era. It had a streak of pitch-black comedy running throughout it. It wasn’t about the 1950’s, it was about the future that the 1950’s anticipated. It was a game that took place in the future of the past.

Bethesda saw this template and concluded that a Fallout game needed to take place in the desert, it needed to be about water, it should contain screwball comedy, and that it should be the 1950’s forever.

They tried to keep the “desert” concept, but moved the game to Washington D.C. where a desert motif makes no sense. They tried to keep the pulp sc-fi tone, but it was often undercut by Bethesda’s putty-faced NPC’s, horrendous washed out color palette, and blunt attempts at photo-realism. They completely misunderstood the humor, replacing ‘dark comedy’ with ‘goofball situations’. And finally, the whole 50’s thing was greatly exaggerated and then rendered nonsensical by moving the timeline forward to 200 years after the war.

This fundamental misunderstanding of the Fallout tone and themes infuses the game and is the source of nearly every major design failing.   

[Krevsin]

But, but, I actually like the overblown 1950s aesthetic. IMO it gives the newer Fallout games a very distinct and memorable look, unlike the first two Fallouts which often looked too brown and like they're drawing from the Rob Liefeld comic book aesthetic of the 90s (i.e. overdefined muscles and stupidly huge guns).

Then again, the dark humour is gone and the morality is about as grey as an oreo so FO3 is not exactly a running candidate for best RPG ever in my book.

Eh, thanks for the links. They're interesting reading. Except for the Fallout Bible, I have that on GoG.

Fun fact: Fallout 1 was the first fallout game I ever played but I only played it the year FO3 came out. Mostly because my computer couldn't run FO3 so I just went and bought a compilation that bundled FO1, FO2 and Tactics.

[Ehndras]

FO: Tactics is my favorite of the series. A very fun game, once you get past the intro. Specialize, specialize, specialize... I do all combat turn-based. I'm not one for using the real-time feature, but that's just me. I sneak up on everyone and murder them in a haze of sudden sniper/assault-fire, or when I can catch folks sleeping, sudden 6-man knife-gank.

[Krevsin]

I really liked Tactics but I always thought the Midwestern Power Armor looks kinda... well, stupid.

[Geltor]

The original Fallout game was a gritty world where you explore the vast California desert in search of a water purification chip. It drew influences from Mad Max, campy 50’s sci-fi movies, and pulpy comics of the same era. It had a streak of pitch-black comedy running throughout it. It wasn’t about the 1950’s, it was about the future that the 1950’s anticipated. It was a game that took place in the future of the past.

Bethesda saw this template and concluded that a Fallout game needed to take place in the desert, it needed to be about water, it should contain screwball comedy, and that it should be the 1950’s forever.

They tried to keep the “desert” concept, but moved the game to Washington D.C. where a desert motif makes no sense. They tried to keep the pulp sc-fi tone, but it was often undercut by Bethesda’s putty-faced NPC’s, horrendous washed out color palette, and blunt attempts at photo-realism. They completely misunderstood the humor, replacing ‘dark comedy’ with ‘goofball situations’. And finally, the whole 50’s thing was greatly exaggerated and then rendered nonsensical by moving the timeline forward to 200 years after the war.

This fundamental misunderstanding of the Fallout tone and themes infuses the game and is the source of nearly every major design failing.   

im rather annoyed by posts like these... posts that attempt to depict fallout 3 as the big failure in the fallout franchise, BUT at the same time praise fallout nv for being true to the original fallouts in all respects while having the same identical flaws as in fallout 3. while the writing and general gameplay is vastly improved in nv, no fallout game delivered the disheartening wasteland feeling to me as fallout 3 did

[umiman]

If you actually read the article, he doesn't praise NV either.

[Putnam]

while the writing and general gameplay is vastly improved in nv, no fallout game delivered the disheartening wasteland feeling to me as fallout 3 did

primarily because that's not what fallout is about and the fact that 3 is the only game that gives you that feeling is the EXACT reason people complain about it?

You said that NV has the exact same flaws as 3 then said that only 3 has the exact flaw people give it crap for (while presenting it as a pro)...

[Flying Dice]

If you actually read the article, he doesn't praise NV either.

But reading is difficult! 

Besides, FO3's plot is pants-on-head retarded.

[Krevsin]

If you actually read the article, he doesn't praise NV either.

He doesn't diss it to the same extent as FO3 either. He just says that its environments are dull and ohnoesinvisiblewalls in both actual and "here are some monsters that are too strong for your level" sense. The latter of which I don't really get because it makes perfect sense that there are some things too powerful for you to handle out there.

Anyway, the point of the article isn't so much about to argue about whether NV or FO3 is better and I quote:

We’ve got this false dichotomy between fans of the games where you can either have:

    The fun, atmosphere, exploration, and [relative] stability of Fallout 3, or…

    Rich lore, vibrant characterization, and consistent themes of New Vegas, but the gameworld looks bland, there are invisible walls everywhere, and it crashes all the time.

Do not fall for this. The Fallout 3 story didn’t need to be stupid. They could have just turned the world of Fallout into a mutant shooting gallery, but instead they constructed this long, strange, nonsensical, thematically disjointed, morally confused, horribly paced story with overlong dialog and contrived choices with no emotional payoff.

This shouldn’t be an argument between Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. This should be an argument between Fallout 3 and the BETTER version of Fallout 3 we could have gotten if just one person had stepped in and either fixed the plot, or changed the plot to tackle a subject commensurate with the skills and ambitions of the writing staff.

You don’t need to accept the Fallout 3 story just because you liked the shooting. Games criticism isn’t an all-or-nothing deal, and it’s okay to hate one part of a game and love a different part. When this much time and money is spent on making a game this big, there’s no excuse for the story to be this bad. They could have done better. This franchise deserved better. You deserved better.

[Geltor]

while the writing and general gameplay is vastly improved in nv, no fallout game delivered the disheartening wasteland feeling to me as fallout 3 did

primarily because that's not what fallout is about and the fact that 3 is the only game that gives you that feeling is the EXACT reason people complain about it?

You said that NV has the exact same flaws as 3 then said that only 3 has the exact flaw people give it crap for (while presenting it as a pro)...

I disagree with you. Fallout 1 delivered it spot on with its ost, grittiness and cinematics (especially endings), and if i may be entitled to my own opinion, it surely was part of the game and i think was delivered better in 3. If people complain about it, then im not part of that fallout fan collective

[Flying Dice]

"Fallout 1" "Disheartening wasteland"

Pick one. The only thing I remember being disheartening was the feeling of YET ANOTHER FUCKING GENERIC RANDOM ENCOUNTER.

Radscorpions!

ad nausem.

[Putnam]

Fallout 1 has a near overwhelming message of hope to it. Even when you're kicked out of your vault it still has a feeling of better things in the future.

[Krevsin]

Also nowadays, "post-apocalypse inspired by Mad Max" is pretty much "generic postapocalypse 101".